"'i'd noticed over the years that certain students, the braver ones, were looking for connections... the normal way of making art wasn't satisfying them. in my own life as a freelance illustrator, i was looking for something with soul and meaning. it all became a timing thing--the history of art had marched down the road, and the students with these [social] sympathies were coming together.' (ken krafcheck, director of mica's master of art in community art progam)
perhaps it has to do with the sheer frustration artists are feeling, not just with the isolation of conventional esthetic expression, but also with the worn-out rhetoric of overtly political art. the chasm between america's poor and privileged classes has never been wider--a fact that's abundantly evident in baltimore city. what good does it do to work social messages into art if the art is hidden away in galleries?"
-from "the big picture", a city paper article by tom chalkley
